Saturday, November 10, 2007

sometimes an experiment is better left in the lab

Sometimes when I look at a card I stamped I really wonder what was going through my mind in the midst of the creative process. Was there a short circuit in my brain? A run of the mill synapse misfire? Or maybe I was just so exhausted, stresses out, distracted, (fill in the blank) that the brain just turned off altogether? And boy, were these thoughts ever appropriate with this card.

It started off innocently enough. I wanted to do a card incorporating the pomegranate satin ribbon, which I love but have had a hard time using (and you can see why!) This ribbon looks very luxurious to me, and I wanted the rest of the card to also reflect that spirit of luxury. So I decided to use the combination of black, pomegranate and gold. So far so good.

But I think this is where everything fell apart. I wanted to use a solid stamp and heat embossing, but I deliberately wanted to avoid baroque motifs, which would have been an obvious choice for a luxurious card. So instead I reached for serene sunflower (because naturally red, black and gold make everyone think of sunflowers, right?)

I stamped one layer of the sunflowers and centers in basic black on the triangular piece of pomegranate card stock. I then added a layer of basic black stamped with the leaves which were also heat embossed in gold. I added the ribbon and adhered the pomegranate piece to the black over the tied ribbon using dimensionals.

Yes, I know it's a little different and odd, but variety is the price of life, right? No worries, though, I'm sure pretty soon my stamping choices will return to the mainstream.

4 comments:

Debby Winters said...

OH my...I've done this too...come up with cards and then wondered where in heaven's name the conglomeration came from!
You're card is not really all that bad though. The bow is beautiful and your colour choices are perfect...I think it was the stamp that through it out of the "elegant" arena..but it is still a very pretty card...just not the one you had planned!

Melody (lacyquilter) said...

Well, I can't see it in person (unless you want to send it to me - lol), but in the photo, this is an absolutely gorgeous card!

Lisa Carroll said...

I think we all experience something like this every once in a while, ya know? Good grief, I know I sure do! I think your card is lovely. :) The color combo is very rich and definitely screams "luxury"! Especially with the gold embossing. I agree with Debby... I think it may have been the Serene Sunflower images that threw it off track a little bit. But a wonderful concept, nonetheless! :)

Keep working with that pomegranate ribbon... I ordered some myself and initially had a difficult time working with it, but now I'm wondering what I ever did without it! ;)

Crafty Connie said...

The black takes on a brown hue on my computer. I like this card. It does have a richness to it.